Tag: virus
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Weekly Science Picks
I hope everyone’s enjoying a nice weekend! It’s my turn again for the weekly science picks, and this week is the 44th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. On July 20th 44 years ago, human beings took their first small steps onto the surface of an object in the solar system other than the…
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Weekly Science Picks
With 2012 firmly behind us, with no more reflections and no more top ten lists, let’s begin… The BBC. As warm and comforting as mother’s milk. A beacon for the rest of the world to follow. Journalistic integrity, and more bang for your buck than any other establishment I can think of. There is nothing…
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Predicting the next epidemic
In some parts of this world the rains predict disease, and a hot, dry, dusty wind is the harbinger of a meningitis outbreak that is yet to come. Now, from where you sit, Google will soon predict the next great epidemic. At this time of year, ever since that 2009 paper was published on flu…
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Weekly Science Picks
Happy Birthday! This first week of October there seemed to be a recurring theme — one of birthdays. On the 1st Nigeria celebrated 52 years of independence, followed closely Germany celebrating unity on the 3rd. But possibly the oldest this week had to be the birthplace of tropical medicine — the London School. “On the…
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The tribe that eradicated rinderpest
Karamoja region in northern Uganda is one of pastoral communities and closely dispersed ethnic groups that rely on livestock for their livelihood. It is within a semi-arid place like this that economies based on meat, milk, and blood from cattle thrive. In communities such as this one, cattle plague will always be the number one…
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Fear of Ebola
“…the last big outbreak I experienced in Uganda [was] in 2007. When MSF arrived a lot of the staff in the hospital had died and the rest had run away because they were scared.” — Dr Kamalini Lokuge, who is about to head off to Uganda with MSF to fight the latest outbreak. At the…